![]() ![]() You pay their price and say thank you.” I resolved that I had found an incredible piece of koa, better than good, so if Jay got in touch I would happily pay his price and thank him. “When you find good koa, you don’t negotiate. In the back of my head the words that I had read before making the trip to Hawaii kept repeating themselves. I didn’t have cash with me that night, and the koa was part of Jay’s display so I gave Him a business card and headed back to the house, excited, but concerned about blowing the wood buying budget I had set for myself. To my surprise he offered to sell it to me. I showed him a few pictures of my uke and told him about how excited I was to have found some Koa to take home and how much I admired his tabletop. ![]() The search was back on! I introduced myself and met Jay, an artist and craftsman from Pennsylvania, who was on the island restoring a historic home. None of the rings fit but there was a slab of highly figured burl koa attached to the base of a tv table. At least I wouldn’t lose it in the ocean like my two previous wedding bands that are now at the bottoms of the McKenzie and Deschutes Rivers so I walked over to check it out. On the way I noticed a small table that I had missed before with a sign that said “Koa Rings.” Much to the chagrin of my wife, I had forgotten my ring on my bedside table in Oregon. After a few laps up and down the main drag, my nephew, Conner, was starting to get tired so we started to head back to the car. We saw some amazing quilts and marbled textiles, heard several bands, and generally enjoyed the merriment. I was introduced to the Tahitian ukulele, a ukulele that was more like a banjo with fishing line for strings. Especially the sign letting us know there was “No public restroom….Even you buy Some’ting.” With our bellies full (overfull) we set out on the task of checking out all of the art. We had a great dinner at a Hawaiian barbeque restaurant and enjoyed the local flavor of the food, the live ukulele music, and the culture. I consoled myself with the fact that I had already found some great koa – and shipping more wood back to the mainland would be expensive anyway so I didn’t really need anymore wood. I sheepishly thanked the man for sharing his amazing wood and wandered away to find the rest of the family. “Oh, how about this one then?” “$600.” The numbers that I had seen scrawled on the boards were indeed the prices. “$1,000” replied the man behind the table, somewhat disinterested. I saw some numbers lightly scrawled on the wood, but nothing that looked like a price, so I lightly touched a particularly beautiful board and asked about a price. The kind of wood that I had only seen pictures of. Heavily figured koa with curl that almost looked 3 dimensional, like you could reach your hand into the grain. When I made it to the table, the wood was spectacular. My mother-in-law, Judy, had almost gotten the car into park when I took off down the road to go look at the wood. All of that faded away when I spotted a sign that said “Curly Koa.” Behind the tents of vendors and food carts lining the road, we found galleries, boutiques, and restaurants. We made plans to visit Hanapepe that evening with McKenzie’s family and were greeted with a vibrant mainstreet filled with tourists and locals enjoying great food, art, and an awesome historic town. What we didn’t know was that every Friday night in Hanapepe was a celebration of the arts with vendors, live music, and food trucks. ![]() We had heard about Hanapepe before the trip reading that the setting of one of our favorite Disney Movies, Lilo and Stitch, was based on the town so it was already on our list of places to visit. After a few songs, an informational tidbit came on about Historic Hanapepe. My score of koa sat propped against the dresser in the bedroom where I could catch a glimpse of it every now and then and dream about the possibilities for when I got back home.Īfter hopping in the car after a hike, my wife, McKenzie, tuned the radio to the local station for traditional Hawaiian music and we basked in the sweet sounds of ukulele. We hiked up sleeping giant, snorkeled in the south pacific and spent many pleasant hours on the beach playing ukulele or just soaking up the sun while enjoying a Maui Brewing Bikini Blonde Pale Ale. We had been on Kauai for about a week in the sun, warm rain showers, and glow of island humidity. ![]()
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